Law regarding gender parity in Sri Lanka

Jurisdictions around the region have developed laws regarding equality of gender to varying degrees. the levels of progress can be illuminating

By Ayomi Aluwihare, F J & G de Saram-21 May 2019

Women are a minority in Sri Lanka’s workforce. Women have, however, over the years, contributed to the economy of the nation significantly. Several industries that are key to foreign earnings are female worker-based.

For decades, tea was the primary export product. The majority of workers in tea plantations have always been women. Today, the garment industry, which accounts for US$5 billion of the country’s total export earnings, is driven by women workers. Remittances from Sri Lankans working abroad amount to US$6.3 billion per annum, and out of the 1.7 million Sri Lankan remitters, 37% are women.

Ayomi Aluwihare
Precedent Partner of
F J & G de Saram in Colombo
Tel: +94 114605115
Email:
ayomi.aluwihare@fjgdesaram.com

In the professions also, women outnumber men. According to the 2018 final quarter statistics of the Department of Census and Statistics, 60% of the professionals working in Sri Lanka are women.

While equality is enshrined in the constitution of Sri Lanka, and the country has made recognized progress on gender equity with regard to education and other social indicators, the employment-related laws, which were enacted in a state welfare era in the 1970s, and some of the older laws that are (though outdated) in force, do not today accord to women the same rights accorded to men with regard to work. A woman is not able to work after 6pm in a shop or office, the number of hours she can work overtime is subject to a limit, and she is not permitted to sell liquor.

Prior to the introduction of the Sex Disqualification Removal (Legal Profession) Ordinance No. 25 of 1933, women were not permitted to be admitted to the legal profession.

Ordinance No.25 of 1933 gave license to the women to become and to practice as advocates, proctors and notaries, and to become commissioners for oaths. Section 2 of this ordinance states:

“A woman shall not be disqualified by reason only of her sex: (a) from being admitted and enrolled, or from practising, as an attorney at law; (b) from being authorized to practise as a notary by a warrant issued under the provisions of the Notaries Ordinance, or from practising or functioning as a notary under the provisions of that ordinance or of any other written law; or (c) from being appointed, or from functioning as a commissioner for oaths under the provisions of the Oaths Ordinance.”

Today, the number of women lawyers outnumber men. According to the 2017 statistics of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka, out of 1,097 lawyers admitted as attorneys at law in that year, 65% were women.

The career options available to women include court work at the private or public bar, advisory work in a firm, or as in-house counsel in a corporate or public body, in the judiciary, in non-governmental organizations, and as an academic in a university.

The judiciary and court work is still dominated by men, however, and there are many reasons for this. The nature of work and working hours, and women preferring daytime work to allow time for their work as a homemaker are among the main reasons.

Women lawyers dominate all other spheres of legal work. Sri Lanka has had women lawyers in the positions of chief justice, Supreme Court and Court of Appeal judges, attorney general, vice chancellor of a university, dean of law faculties in universities, legal draftsman, minister of justice, principal of the Law College, professors of law, president’s counsel, precedent partners at leading law firms, and many general corporate counsel.

F J & G de Saram, established in 1841 in Colombo, is the oldest and one of the largest law firms in Sri Lanka. It is a full-service law firm providing legal services in all areas of corporate and commercial law to its clients including leading business houses in Sri Lanka and the majority of the transnational corporates engaged in business in Sri Lanka.

F J has always had women in its workforce. The first woman lawyer was hired in the later 1950s. Today, 65% of the professional workforce are women and five out of the seven partners are women. A culture of equal opportunity and progression based entirely on merit has been a cornerstone of the practice.

In recognition of the need to support women lawyers in their multi-faceted roles, the firm has invested in IT infrastructure including in security, to enable diverse work models. The firm offers flexible work arrangements such as part time work and work from home, on request, to enable women to meet demands as primary homemaker and to ensure work life balance. The firm also runs a crèche for the children of lawyers and provides extended maternity leave.

The firm enjoys many benefits from its approach to supporting its women lawyers, including the progression of a high number of women lawyers to partnership (no other law firm in Colombo has a majority of women partners) and access to resources that may not otherwise have been available to the firm.

Of 500 married women interviewed for an International Labour Organization study in Sri Lanka in 2016, as many as 48% of the women who had been previously employed cited giving up their jobs for homemaking as their main reason to stop working. This firm has seen minimal attrition due to marriage and children. Combined teams of men and women are enriched by the particular traits and thought processes of each, and have often resulted in exceptional work output in all aspects of the provision of legal services, i.e. from adapting to, and innovating in, a changing business environment, to client management and providing relevant legal advice.

FJ’s experience in encouraging and supporting women lawyers in recognition of the special role of women as homemakers as well as professionals, has been that the contributions of the women lawyers in the firm have been invaluable, benefiting the organization and its lawyers.

A history of civilisation conflict: Part I - The West vs the Rest

• There was a rift between ideology and culture: countries united by ideology could very well be (as they very often were) divided by culture
• There were clashes between Western societies, to be sure, between religious sects on the one hand and between republican and royalist forces on the other: these were between Catholic Europe and Protestant Europe

“Who rules the world today? Bush? Or us?”
— Professor Nalin de Silva

Just when you thought tensions between the US and China couldn’t get any worse, Donald Trump did the unthinkable. It’s a mistake, however, to view or rationalise the ban on Huawei, the world’s second most popular smartphone brand and probably the most widely resorted to 5G technology provider, solely in terms of an escalating trade war between two superpowers. In actual fact it’s more, much more, which is why to consider it as an economic clash would be meaningless; while it’s too early to call it a CIVILISATIONAL clash, it has the makings of one: the West, a liberal rules-based order, clamping down on the East, an enclosed ruler-based order.   

24 May 2019

When Samuel Huntington published his essay “The Clash of Civilisations” in the US journal Foreign Affairs in the summer of 1993, he created a sensation. Over three years, it stirred more discussion than any other essay published in that journal since George Kennan’s “X Article” that, in July 1947, called for containment with the Soviet Union. Huntington’s essay was written after containment, succeeded by detente and rollback, had led to the collapse of the Union; it was a rebuke to Francis Fukuyama’s thesis that the end of Communism would be followed by the triumph of liberal democracy – the triumph, in other words, of the West over the East.   
In stark contrast to Fukuyama’s persistent optimism, Huntington’s view of the post-Communist world order was, to say the least, cynical. The conflict between the communist and capitalist world (outside of which were countries that “claimed to be non-aligned” – an accusation made by the likes of John Foster Dulles that S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike would counter) would be followed by conflicts between civilisations. It would not be between developed and developing societies – it would not be a CLASS war – because the latter were not powerful enough to take on the former.   

In that respect the West was more unified than the East, while the East, particularly the less developed regions, were fragmented so much that the very point which could underscore their unity – separation from the West – fermented division.   
There was a rift between ideology and culture: countries united by ideology could very well be (as they very often were) divided by culture, be it Mexicans protesting against Proposal 187 (which sought to bar illegal immigrants from using public services in the US) waving MEXICAN, and not US, flags, or the case of the systematic genocide of Bosniaks inspiring solidarity from Muslim countries in terms of displays of crescent symbols, or Eelam flags being waved by Tamil Nadu citizens to express solidarity with Sri Lankan (Jaffna) Tamils. Cultural commonalities had brought the West together as one whole; the East had no such commonalities to brandish. The dualism was thus no longer “the West and the East.” It was “the West and the rest.”   

Huntington made pronouncements on various cultures and civilisations and group philosophies. (In his essay he listed seven or eight of these groups.) He wrote about Sri Lanka and how the rise of ethno-nationalist-populist democracy had dislodged the elite from power in 1956. He wrote about and predicted China’s rise as a superpower, a phenomenon which had been ongoing even at the time of the Sino-Soviet split and Nixon’s visit there. Of all those pronouncements, the one which seemed to stand out the most was his take on the rise of Islamism.   
The modern era began in the 15th century after the Portuguese Reconquista; until then “contacts between civilisations” had been “intermittent or non-existent”. Thereafter global politics “assumed two dimensions.” On the one hand, there was the world of the coloniser: from Britain to the United States, spanning both sides of the Atlantic; on the other, the world of the colonised: everyone else. There were clashes between Western societies, to be sure, between religious sects on the one hand and between republican and royalist forces on the other: these were between Catholic Europe and Protestant Europe, and between Papal States and Princely States, which not even the authority of the Church could stem.   
But in the end, despite such differences, the West congealed into an international order. This was symbolised by the Treaty of Westphalia in the 17th century and the attempts of Austrian Chancellor Metternich to forge a “Concert of Europe” after Napoleon’s defeat in the 19th. It was to be a strong cosmopolitan order, hardly liberal (the 19th century didn’t breed democrats, it bred Enlightened Despots) but certainly multicultural, at least in its elite figureheads and their families: Metternich’s son spoke French and German as well as Latin and Greek, and once ousted Louis Napoléon at a French dictation test organised by a renowned scholar.   

"West was more unified than the East, while the East, particularly the less developed regions, were fragmented so much that the very point which could underscore their unity – separation from the West – fermented division"

That the multicultural fabric didn’t quite hold, that the myth of a united continent fell 30 years after the Concert of Europe was inaugurated, did not demolish what George Steiner referred to as “the idea of Europe.” The myth survived, and it incorporated the US soon afterwards; it was this myth that led someone to call World War I a “war to end all wars” and Roosevelt to call World War II a war that would “end the system of unilateral action.” But in neither case did the idealists win: World War I led to the Versailles Treaty, which alienated Germany and planted in it the seeds of fascism, while World War II led to the United Nations and the European Union, the former of which the Trump administration thumbs its nose at, and the latter of which Britain is getting away from. But still, the idea of Western civilisation held on.   
In the eighties, with the impending fall of the Berlin Wall and Communist Bloc, the two ideologues of the Jathika Chinthanaya, Gunadasa Amarasekara and Nalin de Silva (predicting, and preceding, Huntington), bisected the world into two civilisational halves: Judeo-Christian and 
non-Judeo-Christian.   

Terming “Western civilisation” as “Judeo-Christian” is something that right-wing political commentators in the West engage in almost all the time (as witness Donald Trump’s exhortations to protect Judeo-Christian values). As Kevin Schultz points out in an article in the New Republic, however, the word is something of an anachronism, a catchphrase the Right appropriated to justify their hostility to its opposite – whatever that is non-Judaic and non-Christian, particularly Islam. In other words it was defined NEGATIVELY, i.e. in opposition to the Other.   
For Amarasekara and de Silva, it is the Judaic-Christianity chinthanaya that drove much of the West towards a post-Westphalian civilisational consensus in the 19th century. Presumably, parts of the West that did not conform to this consensus, because of the limitations of its rulers or because of revolutionary movements that prevented them from participation in a capitalist order, were incorporated to the dominant chinthanaya following the collapse of Communism. This fits in neatly if with Huntington’s central premise: that the fall of the Iron Curtain brought to the fore the civilisational clashes which the Cold War had concealed.   
Except that where Huntington talked about a conflict between Islam and the West, de Silva and Amarasekara rationalised that conflict between not two, but three cultures: Judeo-Christianity, Islam, and (Theravada) Buddhism.   

Huntington does not talk about the latter, and in fact doesn’t even list it among the cultures he sees the world as being divided into (he doesn’t as much as conflate it with Hinduism). One can say that de Silva and Amarasekara were overestimating the role played by Buddhist societies in the international order, but at the same time it is clear they were being prescient, if not far ahead of Huntington: as the rise of populist yet unethical evangelism, mass scale conversions, and onslaughts on temples and shrines have shown, Buddhism has become as much of a threat to the Judeo-Christian order as Islam, if only slightly less so (as evidenced by the rise in popularity of Buddhism in Western society). Despite this, it’s clear that rifts between Buddhism and Christianity have been superseded, at present, by those between Islam and Christianity.   
In next week’s column the breaking up of Islam into various sects, ranging from the secular to the mystical to the downright fanatical, in response to Western imperialism will be detailed, but what needs to be noted is that rifts between these two, combined with the shift to ideological fanaticism in the Muslim world, did not arise from itself. It was not a suis generis or opa pathika phenomenon. ISIS is only the latest manifestation of a long line of hostilities. How it came about and whether it will end are questions that not even prophets are, I suspect, qualified to answer. The tragedy will keep on unfolding. From our side, we can only watch. 

Alleged Money Launderer Lokuwithana Back: This Time With Plans For Ecologically Damaging Steel Plant In Trincomalee

MAY 22, 2019

A controversy is brewing around a proposed steel manufacturing and export plant in Trincomalee which will have a major detrimental impact on the environmentally-sensitive Eastern town of Sri Lanka, Colombo Telegraph learns.

Nandana Lokuwithana

The government has already announced its plans to proceed with the construction of the controversial billion-dollar steel plant in the Trincomalee area. The Cabinet paper in this regard will be presented by Minister of Development Strategies and International Trade Malik Samarawickrama, a close ally of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

However, the project has sparked a major controversy as a steel plant —a polluting industry which will result in toxic waste products, acid rain-causing Sulpher Dioxide, heavy metal residues and gaseous outflows —will alter the eco-system of the Trincomalee area, home to Sri Lanka’s largest natural port.

“The proposed steel plant will cause irreparable damage to Trincomalee. Apart from causing visible pollution, it will also prevent high-value, clean industries from entering Trincomalee completely disrupting the current masterplan for Trincomalee development,” a source familiar with the project told Colombo Telegraph.

Colombo Telegraph is also in a position to reveal that controversial businessman Nandana Lokuwithana, a Dubai based Sri Lankan businessman, more popularly known as ‘Mariott Lokuwithana’ who is accused of money laundering, is behind the construction of the Trincomalee steel plant.

The controversial businessman acquired the Ceylon Steel Corporation in 2009 through his company ONYX Group, with the blessings of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, and the questionable deal raised many eyebrows at the time.

Although the leaders of the current government constantly bashed Lokuwithana for hoarding money on behalf of the Rajapaksas, none of them effectively pursued investigations into the shady businessman and his questionable deals.

Colombo Telegraph is in a position to confirm that Lokuwithana, on behalf of the Ceylon Steel Corporation Limited and ONYX Group, has attended several meetings with Finance Ministry and BOI officials to discuss the implementation of the steel plant project in Trincomalee.

Lokuwithana, who is more popularly known as the ‘Sri Lankan who bought the Mariott Hotel in Dubai’ — which was reported to have belonged to the Rajapaksas — was also featured in the Panama Papers released by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ)

While in power, Rajapaksa had reportedly invested heavily on properties in Dubai through Lokuwithana, who reportedly hails from Nattandiya, and was introduced to Rajapaksa by his one-time loyalist, Sajin Vass Gunawardena.

The businessman also shares a close relationship with Malik Samarawickrema who flouted the country’s laws in 2017 to facilitate Lokuwithana’s tyre factory in Horana for which Prime Minister Wickremesinghe laid the foundation stone.

Although any applicant who sought to get land from BOI was mandated to submit their application and be evaluated and submit the highest bid price over and above the minimum price of US$40,000 per acre in Horana Zone, Lokuwithana was exempted from this rule by Samarawickrama.

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17 things ‘Avengers: Endgame’ teaches us about the state of our superheroes

“AVENGERS, ASSEMBLE!” We’ve followed the antics of our caped crusaders for many moons now and the cliff-hanger final instalment of the franchise brought it all to a head… In real life, however, the anti-climax to which our powers that be have come has been less than cinematic and more problematic for a fandom grown angry, bitter, cold, despairing, etc. – for all the good that our villains and antiheroes in government have done for us while playing to their own Endgame

Friday, 24 May 2019

Art imitates life. Even movies do. Maybe especially so. In these lean times, there’s nothing like a little laughter to stop the press, stem the blood pressure, ease that stress in life. So here goes. Trust you’ll take these tongue-in-cheek. Or perhaps not.

1. OUT OF THE BLUE 

Carol Danvers rescues the stranded Tony Stark and Nebula – when all hope is gone and the situation is at its bleakest a million light years from nowhere. So don’t forget Captain Marvel is still out there somewhere and can come to the rescue at any time.

In SL: A country at large is still in shock at the recent cataclysm and feeling rather lost. The executive and the legislature playing ducks and drakes with their democratic mandate. An independent judiciary being slapped in the face by presidential pardons of errant mischief-makers. Yes, we’re well and truly stranded. Now the question is who will play Carol Danvers to our Stark fate… US Ambassador Alaina Teplitz and her reassurance that there will be no permanent military base in Sri Lanka? NZ Premier Jacinda Ardern and her denial that the Christchurch bombings have anything to do with our predicament, leaving our state defence ministers looking a tad, well, Nebulous? No, my friends! It still looks very much like all hope is gone and our situation is still looking rather bleak.

2. TIME WILL TELL 

Five years after an event, Scott Lang a.k.a. Ant-Man escapes from the Quantum Realm where he was trapped and shows up to join and help the Avengers – so in time, all things heal; time is the great healer: time heals all wounds.

It’s not quite five years yet. But tell me one worker ant in our colony who doesn’t wish the late great event – that so-called ‘January Revolution’ – hadn’t occurred quite the way it did? Feels like we’ve been trapped in some quantum realm of our own since the democratic-republicans assumed the reins of power. (Once upon a time, which is how all fairytales start, we used to call it ‘Good Governance’). Now – with a president making mincemeat of his posterity, a prime minister failing to beef up his flagging profile much less his presidential prospects, and politicians of all stripes acting the goat and behaving worse than headless chickens – it’s not that time heals all wounds, but that time wounds all heels. (A ‘heel’, for the uninitiated, is a morally reprehensible person.)

3. LOSS OF CONTROL 

An enraged Thor decapitates Thanos – even the noblest gods have their abysmal moments, driven by anger and the sheer dark despair of their predicament.

Quick! If you envisage a monster at whose snap of the fingers (gloved in a bejewelled gauntlet) half of human life could disappear, who do you see? Well, yes, OK, MR – in a past incarnation (gaudy rings to rule them all, and all). But today, the only ogre whose ugliness rouses the ire of the godly is MS. It is a great pity that the only ‘decapitation’ the people can do is to lose their heads and honk their horns loudly and long… as our head of state – or some other headless chicken – drives by in convoy, having blithely held up their masters the citizens of Sri Lanka. So who will knock some sense into the servants of the people? A judiciary did so last year. It is still not too late – though given the excesses since then, it may be too little – to try a little tough love… impeachment, anyone? Off the top of my head, no! The way the putative ‘good guys’ of old are going about governance, I’d save our anger to be vented against them too, when the day for knocking heads off the block comes round again.

4. A CHANGE OF HEART 

Tony Stark initially refuses to help the Avengers. But after talking to his wife – no surprise there: it’s ‘Pepper’ Potts – he relents and agrees to do so; eventually stumbling serendipitously upon a model for the time machine they ultimately use.

One can’t help but wonder if there is a retired ‘Avenger’ out there who’ll change his mind and return to the run of things to right all our wrongs. Of course, the wronged Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka comes to mind. On the other hand, any mantle he assumes may only transport us back to a regime where might was right? So let’s court-martial that thought at least for now!

5. BEST OF BOTH WORLDS 

Dr Bruce Banner has managed to merge his intelligence as a scientist with the Incredible Hulk’s brute strength and seems a better balanced individual now – if a little less likeable because he’s more full of himself than the humble beast of old.

Dear gods of Asgard, let us not draw a parallel between this cinematic nod to Professor Hulk and any strongman-bureaucrat who’s recently thrown his hat in the ring. It’s tempting to think that the latter’s experience as a former defence secretary will combine well with his newfound social conscience. But that may be like his supporters (there are still some) wanting to like an opportunist simply because he did not orchestrate the conditions that gave rise to his candidature. Sorry – “Hulk angry! Hulk smash!” holds true now as then, as it probably will in any alternate future where ‘Gamma Ray Gota’ becomes Goon-in-Chief.

6. BACK TO THE FUTURE 

Dr Bruce Banner – in the course of working with Iron Man to streamline the time machine – warns that changing the past does not affect the present or fix the future; instead it opens up streams of alternate realities.

Again, let’s not go there. We can never fix the past of its egregious nature. Let’s not open the can of wormholes that leads us into a brave new world where everything is bleaker than before.

7. HOW THE MIGHTY ARE FALLEN 

In the Asgardian refugees’ earthly home of New Asgard in Norway, the once noble mighty Thor is a flabby overweight alcoholic despondent over his failure to stop Thanos in time and in denial about the pretty pass that his psyche has come to.

I would never in a million years imagine our prime minister as anything less than sober, although he has gone to pot a bit over the years. But more to the point is his slack-jawed slouching over bringing the plug-uglies of the former regime to court and book. Since it looks unlikely that he’ll gate Gota or mar MR’s prospects of a future premiership, we can only assume that Ranil will (sooner than later, one feels) retire hurt. However ‘not cricket’ be the game he’s playing – and has been playing since he came to the crease – we wish him well and want the best in therapy for him in his golden years. Therefore the niggling hope that before he goes, he will bring MS at least to heel… #TimeWoundsAllHeels

8. FAMILY VALUES 

Thanos uses his adoptive daughter past-Nebula to send her back to the future posing as future-Nebula to sabotage the Avengers and enable him to travel in time to destroy their base.

Did anyone else see an uncanny resemblance between an ambitious MR and an aggressive Thanos? And the way he uses family to further his ends – while seeming sanguine at the public’s interpretation that his family are using him for their own nefarious purposes? Anyone? No? All right, then.

9. IT’S NO SACRIFICE AT ALL 

When the Soul Stone’s keeper, the Red Skull, reveals that in order retrieve it the Avengers must sacrifice someone they love – “a soul in exchange for a soul” – Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow, sacrifices herself despite Clint Barton as Hawkeye’s every attempt to save her and substitute himself instead.

As MR himself once said – laughingly, when some naïve reporter asked him if the leaders in government would resign after the appalling security lapses of a month ago – “This is Sri Lanka. Do you think it could ever happen here?” Well, do you? Go on with you, O romantic!

10. A THREEFOLD CORD 

Ironman, Captain America and the Mighty Thor fight Thanos together but are outmatched.

To revert to the symbolic for a moment: If you take the independent commissions to be Ironman, civil society as Captain America and see a courageous judiciary in the Mighty Thor… is it far-fetched to see the ogre or outrageous executives being eventually defeated by this triumvirate of Avengers?

11. SEND IN THE CAVALRY 

When Thanos summons his army to devastate the Earth, it is only the return of Dr. Strange – in the company of the restored missing Avengers, the Guardians of the Galaxy and the combined armies of Asgard and Wakanda – that staves off another Ragnarok.

If you subscribe to the scenario in 10. above, perhaps you could add the subversive element of social media as Dr. Strange; the long-silent academics and professionals as the legions of Asgard and Wakanda; conscientised clergy like the Cardinal and the Church of Ceylon as the Guardians of the Galaxy; and a revitalised business community as the re-emergent Avengers once thought to be dead. OK, I know it’s a long shot… But we’re running out of options – and time – here… So get with the programme already!

12. ALL IT TAKES IS ONE 

Carol Danvers as Captain Marvel proves that she is the mightiest Avenger after all when she singlehandedly destroys Thanos’ dreadnaught spaceship.

You’re thinking Dhammika Perera in the role… right? Wrong. For one, there’s gaps in his resume – just like Ms Marvel a.k.a. Warbird. For another, it’s just another robber baron, no?

13. PAYING THE PRICE OF PLAYING HERO 

Where Bruce Banner as the Hulk failed, it is puny human Tony Stark’s Ironman who culls the infinity stones and ensures victory with a snap of his gauntleted fingers – but only at the cost of his life.

Where have all the good men gone and where are all the gods? Yeah, Bonnie Tyler, that’s what we wanna know too!
14. A SEA CHANGE 
Thor appoints Valkyrie as the ‘king’ of New Asgard.

If you’re thinking Ranil has a change of heart and yields his throne to Sajith or Karu… think again. This monarch stirring up apathy wherever he goes thinks his JD as PM is for life (“until death do us part” etc.)

15. LOVE’S LABOUR LOST 

Quill searches for Gamora from 2014.

Media and civil society looking for the real avatar of Good Governance! Methinks 2014 is not far back enough to go. Maybe back to the future is only a pipedream and we’re living in an alternate reality already – where the US is really and truly the Guardian of the Galaxy? Not.

16. LOVE IS THE DEATH OF DUTY 

Steve Rogers as Captain America returns the Infinity Stones and the mighty Uru hammer Mjolnir to their original places in time. But rather than return to the present he chooses to remain in the past with the love of his life Peggy Carter.

Can we relegate the executive presidency to the dustbin of history and resume our long-forgotten love affair with the Westminster system or a hybrid thereof? Wait… too late…

17. PASS THE BATON 

An elderly Steve Rogers shows up in the present to pass on his Captain America shield to Sam Wilson the Avenger known as Falcon.

Not in a million years. But art only imitates life. And this ain’t it.

(Journalist | Editor-at-large of LMD | Writer #SpeakingTruthToPower)

What is bipolar disorder? 

Bipolar Disorder

By Dr. Dewasmika Ariyasinghe-May 22, 2019, 8:34 pm

Bipolar disorder is a mental illness, which affects both men and women equally. It can start at any age but commonly does so in late teens. The main characteristic of the illness is that, as indicated by the name of the illness, it has two types of episodes (an episode is a period, which can range from 3-12 months, where the patient has symptoms of the illness) occurring on and off during the life time of the patient. Usually, the patient remains well in-between episodes. During a depressive episode, the patient feels sad and lethargic. He also has lack of motivation, lack of interest in day to day activities, suicidal ideas, pessimistic views of himself, others (world) and the future and impaired sleep and appetite. During a depressive episode, the patient is often seen preoccupied and withdrawn with neglect of himself and other work. In contrast, when the patient is in a manic episode, he feels unduly happy and energetic. He can be very talkative and can have elaborate plans on how to go about impossible tasks/ undertakings. He has no need to sleep and would try to work non-stop. He would not listen to others and would pick up fights whenever he feels he is prevented from achieving his goals. (Some patients experience only depressive episodes during the life time, but no manic episodes. Then it is not bipolar disorder, but recurrent depressive disorder). Some patients can experience a mixture of both during one episode and then it is called a mixed episode.

What are the risks of untreated bipolar disorder?

1. Risk of committing suicide. (Any person who talks about ending his life/ expressing views like 'no point in living', 'I wish I would be dead', should be taken seriously and be directed to the nearest hospital, despite whether they have a mental illness or not)

2. Risk of aggression/violence. This is common during a manic episode, but can happen even during a depressive episode as well.

3. Risk of deterioration of academic performance/ performance at work.

4. Prone to develop other mental illnesses like substance abuse/dependence and dementia.

5. Risk to finances due to poor judgment. overspending

6. Risk of unwanted pregnancies/ acquiring sexually transmitted diseases, as during a manic episode their sexual desires can increase and also they can be sexually dis-inhibited.

7. Risk of neglecting the children/ family/ one's health.

8. Risk to one's reputation as one can act in an inappropriate and irresponsible manner during a manic episode.

9. With frequent episodes the patient's memory, thinking and work performance can deteriorate.

How do we treat bipolar disorder?

The patient can be treated as an inpatient or an outpatient depending on the severity of the problems. After the management of the initial disturbed behaviours, the patient is started on a medication (called 'mood stabilizer'), to minimize the recurrence of episodes. It is important that the patient continues. these until a specialist in psychiatry decides that the medication can be stopped. The duration of treatment varies from patient to patient and usually it is for many years. If a patient experiences frequent episodes, then it is likely that his level of function will also deteriorate with time. So it is important that one continues treatment.

Important facts to know while on treatment

1. To continue treatment as prescribed by the doctor. If you experience any side effect/s you can always discuss it with your doctor and he/she will prescribe another medication.

2. To have a regular sleep pattern. The patients with the illness should not break rest and ideally should not do frequent night shifts at work.

3. To use a reliable contraceptive method. Some medications prescribed for the illness may harm the developing foetus. If the patient wants to get pregnant, then it should be discussed with a specialist in psychiatry and medications will be changed to those which can be taken during pregnancy and breast feeding. It is advisable not to stop treatment by the patient herself as the illness can recur during pregnancy/ after delivery and it can be detrimental for the baby and as well as for the mother. It is also recommended that the patient should not get pregnant soon after getting an episode of depression or mania. She should wait at least six months after the full recovery.

4. To take medications prescribed for other physical illnesses. It is always important to show the medications one already is on when seeing a doctor for any reason, as some medications can interact in the body and can give rise to unpleasant effects. One's mental health and physical health are closely linked, so taking optimum care of both is essential for satisfying life.

5. Some medications need regular monitoring of blood tests and the doctor can advise the patient regarding this

6. One should do regular physical exercises and take a balanced diet to avoid weight gain and to avoid nutritional deficiencies.

7. Not to take substances of abuse (alcohol, cannabis etc) as these can precipitate recurrence of episodes.

8. The medications prescribed for long term management do not cause addiction.

9. The medications prescribed for long term management are not harmful to the brain, but recurrent episodes are.

Bipolar affective disorder is a recurring illness, which can be treated successfully. If the patient adheres to a treatment plan, has regular time to relax, and avoid taking substances and breaking rest he/she can function well in his/her day to day life while doing a job like anyone without an illness.

Dr. Ariyasinghe (MBBS,MD-Psych) is Senior Lecturer, Department of Psychiatry, Faculty Of Medicine, University of Peradeniy and Honourary Consultant Psychiatrist, Teaching Hospital Peradeniya

Video: Gaza sweet factory integrates deaf workers

21 May 2019

This sweet factory in Gaza is run by workers who are deaf or hard of hearing.

The Hanan Sweet Factory produces Arab candies and desserts in Gaza City.

“At first I thought it would be difficult, I didn’t know how I would communicate with him,” Muhammad al-Ghazali, the owner of the factory, told The Electronic Intifada about hiring the first worker.

“But when he came to work I found he had high concentration and very good talent.”

“When I first came here, my job was to put nuts on sweets. But I learned and developed new skills and started making them from scratch,” says Mouin al-Siksik, a worker at the factory.

Video by Mohammed Asad.

EXCLUSIVE: Saudi Arabia to execute three prominent moderate scholars after Ramadan

The treatment of Salman al-Odah, Awad al-Qarni and Ali al-Omari, all facing charges of 'terrorism', has been condemned by rights groups

Salman al-Odah, Awad al-Qarni and Ali al-Omari are all set to be executed after Ramadan (Twitter)

By David Hearst-21 May 2019

Three prominent moderate Saudi Sunni scholars held on multiple charges of “terrorism” will be sentenced to death and executed shortly after Ramadan, two government sources and one of the men’s relatives have told Middle East Eye.

The most prominent of these is Sheikh Salman al-Odah, an internationally renowned scholar known for his comparatively progressive views in the Islamic world on Sharia and homosexuality.

Odah was arrested in September 2017 shortly after tweeting a prayer for reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and its Gulf neighbour Qatar, three months after Riyadh launched a blockade on the emirate.

The other two slated for execution are Awad al-Qarni, a Sunni preacher, academic and author, and Ali al-Omari, a popular broadcaster. They too were arrested in September 2017.

'They will not wait to execute these men once the death sentence has been passed'

- Saudi governmental source

All three had massive followings online. Odah's Arabic Twitter account boasts 13.4 million followers alone, and the hashtag #freesalmanalodahemerged after his arrest. Omari’s TV station “For Youth” also had a huge audience.

Two Saudi government sources independently confirmed the plan to execute the three men, who are currently awaiting trial at the Criminal Special Court in Riyadh. A hearing was set for 1 May, but was postponed without setting a further date.

One source told MEE: “They will not wait to execute these men once the death sentence has been passed.”

A second Saudi government source said the execution of 37 Saudis, mostly Shia activists, on terrorism changes in April was used as a trial balloon to see how strong the international condemnation was. 

“When they found out there was very little international reaction, particularly at the level of governments and heads of state, they decided to proceed with their plan to execute figures who were prominent,” said the source, who like the first spoke on condition of anonymity.

The timing of the executions will also be dictated by the current rise in tensions between the United States and Iran.

“They are encouraged to do it, especially with the tension in the Gulf at the moment. Washington wants to please the Saudis at the moment. The [Saudi] government calculates that this enables them to get away with this,” the first source said.

A member of one of the scholars’ families told MEE: “The executions, if they go ahead, would be very serious, and could present a dangerous tipping point.”

Middle East Eye has approached the Saudi authorities for comment.

Provoking condemnation

The detention of the three scholars has already provoked the condemnation of the United Nations and the US State Department, as well as rights groups Human Rights Watch (HRW), Reprieve and Amnesty International.

In September, a year after his arrest, Odah appeared at a closed hearing of the Special Criminal Court, a tribunal set up by the interior ministry to try cases of terrorism. Odah was then accused by the special prosecutor of 37 charges of terrorism.

These included alleged affiliation to “terrorist organisations”, which the prosecution named as the Muslim Brotherhood and the European Council for Fatwa and Research, two prominent international Islamic organisations.

'Odah will be executed not because he is an extremist. It’s because he is a moderate. That is why they consider him a threat'

- Jamal Khashoggi

A second set of charges accused him of exposing “injustices towards prisoners” and of “expressing cynicism and sarcasm about the government’s achievements”.

The third set of charges alleged an affiliation with the Qatari royal family and cited Odah’s public unwillingness to support the Saudi-led boycott on the peninsula emirate.

Two days before his own brutal murder at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi told friends in London that these 37 charges revealed everything they needed to know about the rule of law in the kingdom under its de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. 

“He will crush dissent at all cost. These charges must be publicised,” Khashoggi said at the time. “Odah will be executed not because he is an extremist. It’s because he is a moderate. That is why they consider him a threat.”

Reacting to Middle East Eye's report, HRW's Middle East director Sarah Leah Whitson said: "Any further executions of political dissidents is a direct consequence of the Trump administration’s enabling environment, and its repeated, public vice-signalling: no matter what heinous abuse you commit against your people, we’ve got your back."

Blindfolds and shackles: What 'gardening leave' meant for arrested Saudi scholar

Read More »

In January last year, a UN panel of experts, part of the Human Rights Council, accused Riyadh of ignoring repeated calls to halt violations as it arrested religious figures, writers, journalists and activists “in a worrying pattern of widespread and systematic arbitrary arrests and detention”.

The panel of experts said: “We are also seeking the government’s clarification about how these measures are compatible with Saudi Arabia’s obligations under international human rights law, as well as with the voluntary pledges and commitments it made when seeking to join the Human Rights Council.

“Despite being elected as member of the Human Rights Council at the end of 2016, Saudi Arabia has continued its practice of silencing, arbitrarily arresting, detaining and persecuting human rights defenders and critics.”

The US State Department also cited the trial of Odah and the two other scholars in an annual report on human rights earlier this year.

"The public prosecutor brought 37 charges against [Odah], the vast majority of which alleged ties with the Muslim Brotherhood and Qatari government, in addition to his public support for imprisoned dissidents," the report said. 

"None referred to specific acts of violence or incitement to acts of violence, according to a HRW statement on 12 September.”

Additional reporting by Ali Harb

Andrea Leadsom quits over Theresa May's Brexit bill

Leader of house known to be unhappy with some of 10 concessions set out by PM

•  ‘End of the road’: what Thursday’s papers say

Andrea Leadsom published a letter of resignation. Photograph: Yui Mok/PA

Heather Stewartand Peter Walker-Wed 22 May 2019 

Andrea Leadsom has resigned as the leader of the House of Commons, saying she no longer believed the government’s approach would deliver Brexit.

Leadsom, who has signalled she expects to launch a leadership bid, published her resignation letter after Theresa May resisted intense pressure to step aside.

She was one of several cabinet ministers, including Penny Mordaunt and Sajid Javid, who were known to be unhappy with some of the 10 concessionsset out by May on Tuesday, in a bid to win the support of Labour backbenchers for her deal.

In particular, they felt they had not signed off one of the prime minister’s central pledges, to offer MPs a vote on holding a second Brexit referendum – and if necessary, legislate to hold one.

In her resignation letter, published on Twitter, Leadsom said she had previously accepted “some uncomfortable compromises” over Brexit, but continued: “I no longer believe our approach will deliver on the referendum result.”

Ver imagen en Twitter

Andrea Leadsom MP

✔@andrealeadsom

It is with great regret and a heavy heart that I have decided to resign from the Government.

8.282

12:35 - 22 may. 2019

She listed four reasons: that May’s plan would not result in “a truly sovereign United Kingdom”; that a second referendum would be “dangerously divisive” and risk the union; that recent Brexit ideas “had not been properly scrutinised or approved by cabinet members”; and that divisions among ministers “has led to a complete breakdown of collective responsibility”.

Leadsom added: “I know there are elections tomorrow, and many Conservatives have worked hard to support our excellent candidates. I considered carefully the timing of the decision, but I cannot fulfil my duty as leader of the house tomorrow, to announce a bill with new elements that I fundamentally oppose.”

Praising May’s “integrity, resolution and determination”, the letter ended by urging the PM to “make the right decisions in the interest of the country, the government and our party”.

As Commons leader, Leadsom had been expected to lay out further details of the government’s plans for taking the withdrawal agreement bill through parliament on Thursday.

She is a committed Brexiter, who was due to go head-to-head with May in the Conservative leadership contest in the summer of 2016, before pulling out of the race.

Her departure puts the onus on other Brexiters in the cabinet known to have reservations about May’s plan to act, including Chris Grayling, Penny Mordaunt and Steve Barclay.

Reacting to Leadsom’s resignation, John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, said: “We are witnessing a government falling apart. My view is that when Theresa May goes, we should be given the offer of forming our own government.

“Whoever replaces her cannot be secure of maintain a majority in parliament.”

Chris Heaton-Harris, the Tory MP who resigned as a whip earlier this year, said: “This is a completely honourable resignation. She has gone for the right reasons.”